Monday, 11 July 2016

Dogara while speaking with newspaper editors in Abuja, last Saturday, said he was shocked by the monumental looting of the treasury in the
past, citing the discovery of billions of looted fund buried in a farm
in Abuja.

He explained that operatives of anti-graft agencies had been busy moving the cash out of the farm.

Dogara said he had never heard of such impunity in which people
“stole for the sake of stealing,” decrying the latest antics of
suspected looters to bury their loot in farmland. But in his words he added, “But, if I am just arrested, charged to court and maybe some money
recovered from me and, at the end of the day, nothing happens, a lot of
people may not be deterred in the future from engaging in corrupt
practices... If you look at the massive looting of the treasury, I never could have imagined
the scale of corruption that we are witnessing right now, where people
took lot of money running into billions and buried them in farms... As we are speaking now, they are recovering monies from someone’s
farm somewhere around Abuja. It is very unfortunate where people stole
money just for the sake of stealing.”

In addition he opinned, “If you were the one in charge of fighting corruption, you would have
even been shocked by the scale of the problem. I guess part of the
problem we have is that the scale of the problem far outweighs the
anticipation of the agencies. So, if care is not taken, we may not get
things right in the process. They will have to keep their heads level to
be able to be in charge of the fight and to do it effectively.”

“If you look at what it has done so far, there is even a discussion
as to whether or not they are proceeding in the right direction and
whether or not it is not time for us to sit down and do an assessment of
how the fight has been, in view of the fact that in the last one year, I
do not think there has been any major conviction... It has always been a case of this person has been arrested and
detained and some things have been done or he has been charged to court
and then the story ends there. If we continue like this, only God knows
if we will succeed in fighting corruption... If the end is just to arrest people, charge them to court and
thereafter nothing happens; no one is convicted; because conviction,
even if you are not jailed, has a way of deterring people... The fact that you are carrying that negative appellation as a former
convict has the potential to deter people from corruption in the
future.”

“If we are talking about corruption, naturally, it will relate to
those that had opportunity to serve in government. You will recall that,
especially that the PDP had been in power for a number of years, more
than a decade and if you were to weigh members of opposition that are in
government now and had opportunity to serve, those that would have
tendencies to engage in pilfering of resources, majority will come from
PDP, except we are not being realistic." “Though we can’t claim that all the members of APC are saints – you
pointed out that APC spent money in the course of the campaign – where
did this money come from? Because as it is, we haven’t really had any
facts about government officials forwarding money to the cause of the
campaign! Majority of the money that was stolen was channeled towards
the PDP campaign.

“You know the arms purchase monies, for instance, virtually
everything was given for the prosecution of PDP campaign. I do not think
a dime went to any member of the APC; we were all in government then. I
can’t remember a discussion like that then. I knew when some of the
funds were being given to some of our friends as well but, I believe
that no one that is of APC stock was given that money. The whole thing
was scripted.

“I don’t think the fight has really been one-sided. If you recall,
one of the closest aides to the president, I don’t want to name him, if
you recall when he was picked up, everyone was shocked that the man
could be picked up. He had been one of the most dutiful, yet he wasn’t
spared when evidence was adduced that he benefitted from it and he had
to refund the money."

“Recently, one of the closest people to the Villa was, as well,
picked up. He has been detained and questioned; some recoveries were
made from him. If the intention was that the fight should be one-sided, I
can guarantee you that if it were to be a case that would have sacred
cows, those two amply qualify as sacred cows that should not be
touched."

“The Speaker added that if there was anybody in the APC government
that perpetrated corruption and had not been dealt with, it could be
that there was no evidence before the government, adding that “I know
there will be more that will come under serious searchlight of the
anti-graft agencies and it doesn’t matter where they are.”

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